


Fouetté En Tournant

by Furiyan



Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Assassins, Drama, Elsa is a dirty dirty woman, F/M, Fluff, Inspired by Overwatch, Inspired by Widowmaker, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 19:56:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11043222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furiyan/pseuds/Furiyan
Summary: Eight years ago, Moonlight counter-terrorist agent Jack Frost was nearly murdered by his wife, Elsa. Eight years later, Division counter-terrorist assassin Jack Frost comes face to face with a blast from the past, his once-heart and soul... his wife. Inspired by Overwatch and the character Widowmaker. Rated M for adult themes, language, and smut. Lots of smut. I'm serious.





	1. Chapter 1

**Fouetté En Tournant**

"You sure you wanna do this, mate?"

Aster's question, while well-meaning, has the added effect of throwing in a hum of mild irritation through Jack's mind. It's a stupid question.

Inside the room, behind an inch of bulletproof plexiglass, two security cameras and an electrified floor designed to knock someone out if they so much as sneezes the wrong way, is his wife, after all. The woman of his dreams, his soulmate, his heart who kept him going through the toughest times.

Oh, and nearly succeeded in murdering him.

Not to mention dozens of other innocent people.

So, no, he isn't sure. The cold part of him, the frozen walls of his defense mechanism implores him to walk away and never see her again. The rest of him still in love pleads for him to see her, hear her voice, smell her perfume.

So, with such a quandary, it's no surprise the grey steel door in front of him looks _mighty_ interesting.

Jack fingers at the bottom hem of his jacket, and swallows through a dry throat. His voice comes out in little more than a hoarse croak. "Why do you ask?"

"You've been staring at that door for two solid minutes."

Jack would chuckle, had there been any humour left. No, his legs are rooted to the spot before the literal _and_ figurative door. He blinks, and lets out a raggedy breath he has no idea he's been holding, ending it in a noncommittal grunt.

"She's been in that cell for a week, mate." Aster folds his arms in a rustle of cotton sleeves. "You've ignored her every request to see you."

"So?"

"So… maybe you should at least talk to—"

Jack's head whirls to meet him, glaring. "Since when did you get so soft?"

Aster's face, despite the harsh snap, betrays nothing but sympathy and pity. Jack doesn't know which annoys him most. "About the same time you got so cold, mate, and… well-" he lifted his left hand, where gold glimmered around his ring finger, "-let's just say life gave me clarity."

Jack glances once at the precious metal before turning back to the door. He'd forgotten Aster fell in love with an exotic dancer. Thiana is her name. Sparky woman, energetic, colourful. Division had a way of beating the hope out of you, but Aster never lost his optimism - and that was due, Jack suspects, in no small part to Thiana.

All of a sudden his throat begins to burn, and his right hand massages at the two circular scars in the middle of his chest. It _still_ hurts there, even eight years on, though Jack wonders if it's not phantom pain, but a pain that leaves scars you can't see.

"She did come here willingly."

"Yeah, I know," Jack responds gruffly. "She escaped Nightfall and surrendered to us. I read the report. Doesn't mean I should give her the time of day… or have you forgotten how many she's killed?"

"Some would argue she didn't know what she was doing, mate."

Oh, she does. Jack remembers like it was yesterday the cold look in her eyes, and the double muzzle flash before he hit the ground. He remembers the sudden loss of contact with dozens of operatives. He remembers Paris.

Chewing at his lip, he casts one more glance at Aster's wedding band. He's happy. Whole. Anyone can see it. Falling in love… it enriches you. Heals you. Makes you strong.

_Kills_ you.

His resolve crumbles.

"Aster, do me a favour."

The taller Australian smiles. "Whatever you need."

"Protect her. Thiana. Don't… don't be me."

Allowing himself no second thought nor moment's hesitation, Jack sucks in a deep breath and twists the handle, pushing open the steel door to the secrets within.

The underground room is dark save for a large rectangle of bright white light to the left, obscured by the concrete ceiling as Jack descends the hard stairs. His footsteps echo like thunderclaps through the room, a signal that the occupant responds to by a scamper of feet that visibly poke out from under the ceiling. His steps cease at the floor, and he wills his eyes to rest upon the huge transparent plexiglass cell occupying half of the room.

And the woman inside it, her right hand feathered across the clear surface as she gazes upon him with sky-blue eyes of relief, surprise and… happiness.

Love.

"You came," she breathes, and the melody of her voice sings to his ears. "Jack."

He can barely stand to look at her, yet can't look away. He both loves and hates her in equal measure. Love of his life, and architect of his near-death.

"Elsa."

* * *

" _So, I was thinking," Jack said as he examined with deep interest the Chinese takeout menu, "we should fly to Norway and see your folks, take your mind off the abduction. Maybe stop in Spain on the way back?"_

_Elsa, her right foot back, her arms spread wide, launched into a rather elegant fouetté en tournant in front of the wall mirror. Ballet was her dream, her life, and in Jack's humble opinion, the most beautiful thing about her. Building a ballet studio in their lavish apartment was the best decision they ever made._

" _That sounds lovely," she said. "Are you sure you have leave?"_

_Jack scoffed just as the first bars of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture blasted out from her gym bag. Probably Anna, he suspects, as Elsa relaxes from her routine and walks over to it._

" _I can make the time. Besides, Hiccup can take over for a few weeks. Hopefully he won't blow up the office."_

_She laughed a sweet, angelic laugh."Did I mention I love you?" she said, before answering the phone._

" _Never got tired of hearing it. Now… you want Chinese or Thai?"_

_Silence._

" _I mean, I like both, so…"_

_Silence._

" _Elsa?"_

_He looked up._

_Elsa, as calm as a still lake, returned her phone to the bag, her hand searching its interior for a moment._

" _Hey, Earth to Elsa?"_

_The hand withdrew, and gripped by its fingers… was a gun. Pointed at him. Elsa_ hated _guns. She refused to allow them in the house._

_Jack looked between it and her face, and saw nothing but resolute calm, and icy cold._

" _Elsa, what the—"_

" _Nightfall sends their regards."_

_Two bright lights._

_White hot pain._

_Darkness._

* * *

Her hand slides down the wall to hang at her side, yet her gaze still rests on him. Her platinum blonde hair is woven into that French braid she loves - _loved_ \- and a white boiler suit constitutes prisoner couture.

"You look well."

Jack snorts quietly. "Likewise. Lethal divorce must agree with you."

There's a flash, a flinch, a blink. Thinned lips. "I was beginning to think you didn't want to see me."

"I didn't." Jack quietly moves toward the steel chair placed a good seven feet away from the cell. "Aster convinced me otherwise."

"I'm glad." Her lower lip finds its way between her teeth, her mind visibly searching for direction, yet _still_ she does not look away as he sits. "Any… hobbies? Do you still carve toys?"

What the… is it the day of stupid questions? Lame small-talk? "No, but I have a new one."

She smiles. "Tell me, please?"

"Resurrection."

_Now_ her eyes falter. Faint satisfaction courses through him, a perverse joy at her pain. The anger, the betrayal, the _hurt_ drives him on. "How about you? Still dancing, or is sniping your favourite pastime?"

"Jack," she whispers, pleads.

"What do you want me to say, Elsa? How are you? How's life? Do you remember the faces of the people you killed, or are they just bank transactions?"

He bolts up from the chair, and she steps back as his voice grows in volume and fury. "Was I just a mark? When we got married, when we made love, was all that just a buildup to the day you shot me? Did you even _love_ me?" He steps toward the cell, hands clenched at his sides. "Is _that_ what you want me to say?"

She stares back at him, her face slack with guilt and anguish, her shoulders low and her eyes shimmering wet. Her mouth opens and closes, bereft of a single word to say. Jack's chest rises and falls with each angry breath, heat filling his veins like lava. Silence reigns between them, one filled with memory, pain, and rage, and as the seconds pass, his fury ebbs away.

"This was a mistake," Jack sighs. He turns back and makes for the steps at the other end of the room.

"I did love you!"

Her call freezes him in his tracks.

"I still do."

Jack turns, slowly at first, until his eyes rest upon her. Both of her hands press against the cell wall, and her eyes radiate pleading hope… and fear.

"Why did you want me here, Elsa?" he croaks.

Her lips twist into a half-smile, but it's full of sadness and regret. "I wanted to talk to you, wanted to… to explain. Most of all… despite the pain and my guilt… I just wanted to _see_ you one last time. Before… before it's too late."

Division agents are due to take Elsa away in ninety minutes. It was supposed to be half an hour ago, but Aster managed to convince North to delay it… so Jack could talk to her one last time.

Part of him wishes Aster hadn't, yet, against his better judgement, he returns to his chair. Elsa breathes an audible sigh of relief, and her hands slip away from the transparent walls.

He gazes at her for a few moments, taking in the pitiful excuse for a bed and exposed toilet in his peripheral vision. From wealthy professional ballet dancer to incarcerated mercenary assassin… how far the graceful have fallen. His heart twinges at the sight.

"Do you…" he murmurs, "still dance?"

Elsa shakes her head. "Not since that day. I fear I have forgotten everything I was taught."

"I doubt that. You don't forget stuff you've spent years learning."

"Maybe not." She anxiously fidgets with the fabric at her thigh, and slowly backs up toward the bed. It's like she doesn't want to lose sight of him. "I… didn't mean for… I never wanted to become what I am."

"But you did become Nightfall's top sniper." Jack relaxes back into the chair. "You did help them bring down Moonlight. You know that."

She sits on the cold steel surface, and draws her legs up to cross underneath her whilst her fingers play with each other. "I know."

"They all think you're a traitor, Elsa. Hell, I'm not sure I disagree."

"I know," she repeats, her eyes closing not out of exasperation, but _resignation._

"Then _why?"_ He leans forward, searching her with his gaze. "Help me understand why you killed all those agents, why-" he paused to unbutton the top of his white shirt, pulling it aside to reveal the two scars over his heart, "-you did this to me."

Upon resting her eyes on her handiwork, her brow furrows as her face tightens, and there's an audible intake of breath. Jack closes his shirt up again, and rests his temple in the crook of his right hand. He can almost _feel_ her regret and pain, and there's a growing part of him that wants to open the cell just to hold her hand.

"As you know, I…" she begins, uncertainty yet strength in her voice, "Nightfall abducted me."

He knows it all too well. Nightfall is an international terrorist organisation. Notoriously hard to track, they had been a constant thorn in Moonlight's side back when Jack worked for them as an anti-terrorist agent. Yet, Moonlight had been equally as troublesome for Nightfall.

It was after her performance of Swan Lake in Prague that Elsa went missing, with Nightfall taking credit for the abduction. Moonlight launched the operation to end all operations, and after a week of combing the entire world, decimating safe houses and interrogating terrorists, they eventually found Elsa in St. Petersburg, dishevelled and hungry, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Not a day goes by when Jack doesn't curse his overwhelming relief and joy at her safe return for blinding him to how _easy_ and _convenient_ it was… until it was too late.

He should have seen it coming.

"Uh-huh," is all he can muster.

She looks up at him. "Were you… there when I told Aster everything I knew?"

"No." He folds his arms. "I was working."

He's half-right. He _was_ working, but only because he would rather have been anywhere else on the base than peering through the one way mirror, watching Aster conduct the interrogation. If it could even be called that. Apparently, Elsa was more than compliant in revealing everything Division needed to know about Nightfall, and even stuff they _didn't_ know.

"Oh," she says, her eyes falling. "I… can't say I'm surprised. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near me, either."

"Why'd you say that?"

"You've never done anything you didn't want to do." Her lips curl in a half smile. "I heard you refused to breach a terrorist-held school because the children might get hurt."

Jack shifts in discomfort - her words have far more implication on the present than he'd like. "Yeah, and it got me taken off field duty. You're deflecting."

Elsa snorts under her breath. "I suppose so. Well," she wraps her arms around her chest, which is quintessential Elsa Frost body language for _this-is-hard-to-talk-about,_ "Nightfall didn't just abduct me. They… tortured me."

Jack's head snaps up from his hand, and he stares at her in ill-concealed shock. "They _what?"_

"Tortured me. They found every fear, every weakness, and exploited it. They took my will and broke it. Made me numb… I stopped feeling just to avoid the pain. Made my heart ice… and that was what they wanted. They conditioned me, programmed me… and when I was ready, they brought back my old self back and… abandoned me in St. Petersburg."

"For Moonlight to find you and take you home," Jack finishes.

"Yes." She nods. "For two weeks, I lived with no memory of what they did to me. Two weeks where I was the same Elsa Frost; prima ballerina, sister, and deeply in love with her husband. Two weeks of happiness… and then, while telling you I loved you, I got a phonecall."

"The one in our dance studio."

"Yes." Her finger wipes below her left eye. "It was Nightfall… and the last thing I remember as my own self was hearing the activation phrase. It was… imagine one moment you are in control, and the next, there's a voice in the back of your mind screaming at you to stop shooting your husband. Everything that made me who I was just switched off, and Nightfall's programming took over. It was like I was there just to watch as I shot you, powerless to even control a _finger_."

It explains a lot, even if it does smell fishy. Elsa would never allow a gun anywhere near her, treating life as sacrosanct. Nightfall must have slipped something else into the programming.

Jack relaxes back into the chair, resting a finger across his lips. "But why me? You were within shooting distance of Moonlight's top staff… but you tried to kill me."

"Of all Nightfall's threats, you were the most dangerous. Every operation against them was led by you. Without you… Moonlight's campaign against them would be crippled."

She's not wrong. In the six months Jack spent in an off-the-grid hospital, the international police force Moonlight was beset by allegations of corruption and unsanctioned operations at the highest level. Public opinion turned against it in a matter of days, and by the time Jack awoke from his coma… Moonlight had gone quietly into the good night.

"They knew you were too good to be assassinated the conventional way so…"

"They made you into a sleeper agent, knowing I wouldn't expect my own wife to kill me."

Elsa nods, though there's a moment of hesitation, as though confirming the truth is somehow painful. Which, well, it is. Elsa was a ticking time bomb Jack had unknowingly brought home.

"Then, I guess, you went right on back to Nightfall and became the mercenary assassin Snow Queen."

Elsa winces at the accusatory bite to his voice. "Yes. They trained me in hand to hand combat, infiltration tactics, and in the use of long range sniper rifles." She rises from the bed, and slowly paces the cell. "They taught me to kill without remorse, hesitation, regret, or any kind of emotion."

She whirls around to face him, her face etched with pleading sorrow…

"Jack, you have to believe me, I never meant for-"

But he's having none of it.

"So then you travelled the world, assassinating people for money." He pulls the lapels of his jacket over his chest with one hand, and leans forward. "Politicians, ex-Moonlight agents, CEOs… fifty people over eight years. And you didn't regret a single one."

Her eyes screw themselves shut as she turns her head away, and her entire upper body seems to hunch in on itself. If his words are bullets, he just emptied a clip into her heart.

A breath escapes his lips in a long, shaky sigh, and he closes his eyes as he massages the bridge of his nose. Of all the emotions he's expecting to feel after seeing his wife again… guilt is not one of them.

To top it off, a voice with a decidedly _Australian_ accent speaks in his mind - " _Some would argue she didn't know what she was doing, mate."_

Maybe Aster's right. Maybe Elsa, as her true self, was powerless against her neuro-programming. Maybe she _didn't_ want to do the things she did. Maybe she _did_ love him, and wasn't truly responsible for killing all those people.

"You… you still got… are you gonna turn into an emotionless killing machine if I say something like ' _cute fluffy bunnies?"_

Elsa laughs, but it's a quiet, bitter, humourless laugh of self-loathing. "It was ' _marshmallow',_ actually-"

"Ugh."

"-but no. Your resident psychiatrist was kind enough to help me ensure my programming is gone. Dr. Rapunzel… she is… sweet. Forgiving. After all the things I've done to people, and done _with_ people… she never judged me. It was… nice."

"That she is." Jack shifts his weight in his chair, leaning to one side while his fingers entwine together… but then something twigs in his mind. "Wait…" he leans forward, "You just said ' _with'._ "

She looks up at him with eyebrows peaking as her lips play with her teeth, and there's a sad, regretful, resigned look in her eyes that twists Jack's stomach on its way to the floor. What she's about to say is _clearly_ more unforgivable to her than anything else she's done.

"Please don't make me say it," she whispers. Her head pleads with him in the way it turns to and fro. "Please."

"Why not? Elsa, _you_ wanted me here, why hold back-"

"Because you'll leave me if I tell you."

Silence follows her words. Pregnant and heavy, it slams down between them like a portcullis, and Jack finds himself spent of speech.

"Promise me you won't leave," she breathes. "Promise."

"Elsa, what-"

She darts to the transparent wall hard enough for the sound of skin against plexiglass to reverberate throughout the basement room, and Jack flinches. Her hands spread wide against its surface, and her gaze pleads, _implores_ him to stay.

"Promise me!" she shouts.

Jack spreads his hands, looking at her with complete bemusement. What could possibly be so bad, after all she's done, that would turn her into a fearful mess upon the idea of him leaving her?

"Fine," he blurts. "I promise."

Elsa studies him for a few long moments in silence as her hands slide down the wall, like she's trying to work out whether he means it. A small part of Jack feels offended; he never lied, never broke a promise.

But the pain in her eyes is all too real.

"It was in Bora Bora," she says after a time, turning away from him just enough to see through the corner of her eye as she gazes distantly at the floor, but enough to not look him in the eye.

"Our target was a wealthy techo-mogul named Alistair Krei."

Jack nods - he knows the story. Two kids learning to sail found a body floating in the clear blue sea surrounding the island of Bora Bora, half of his head blown off. It wasn't until the police identified the body that they learned his name - Alistair Krei, CEO of Kreitech, and the main drive behind the shared venture with the much smaller Hamada Industries in nanobot construction technology. Without Krei, the deal fell through, and automated construction was sent back a decade.

The calibre of the bullet, and the witness reports of a dull bang from the island practically nextdoor led to only one conclusion: Snow Queen.

"We had been there for a week, my handler and I, scoping out the best sniper spots, infiltration points, escape routes. Krei… he was a creature of habit. Every morning he would go for a swim but… on the day of the operation, we got word he had to push back his vacation by two days—Jack, you have to understand," she turns to face him, "I wasn't myself-"

"What. Happened."

Flinching at his cold tone, Elsa looks away. "We were told nothing had changed, so we were to remain there until he arrived, and carry out the hit as normal. Since we had already fine tuned our plan we had nothing to do so… we… booked a room and… one thing led to another… we spent the next two days…" she hesitates, and there's a crystal line of liquid that descends from her right eye. Her gulp is so prominent it looks like she's swallowing a rock. "...we spent the next two days…"

Jack's hands clench into fists so hard his nails dig into his palms, and his jaw fuses so tight his teeth threaten to drive themselves into his skull. Elsa's hands, however, curl around her chest once more in a protective embrace, and she flops down onto the edge of her steel bed.

"Fucking?"

Elsa's head jerks up at the harsh snap to his tone, and her face looks like she's just been slapped. Yet, as though he needs further confirmation, she nods.

"Was that the only time?"

Her head moves from side to side. Of course not. It couldn't be a one off. Hot anger flows like magma, and he bolts up from the chair and turns away from her.

"Every time we did a job together after that. We… even arrived at the location two days early so we could… have sex." Her voice, cracking like thirsty soil, takes on a bitter, loathful edge. "He called me his dirty little freak, doing things to him I never did with my husband. It makes me sick to even repeat that."

Jack whirls around, eyes wide with aghast fury. " _You_ feel sick? _You?"_

She stares back at him in shock, her face as pale as the boiler suit. For several long, agonising seconds, he debates breaking his promise and walking out of the room, leaving her to rot in her guilt, remorse and surrounded by the souls of the dead. Make her hurt as much as she did. Break her heart as justice for nearly stopping his.

Justice, though, or revenge?

"I'm so sorry. Of all the things I've done… being unfaithful to you is what I regret most. Even if you hate me, please… believe that."

Jack snorts - he doesn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. Fifty people's lives were terminated at the end of her scope, and what Elsa hates most is that she slept with another man.

Jack turns away, for the annoyingly balanced Australian voice speaks again in his mind, pushing aside the anger and betrayal. Was it truly her? If what she's saying is true, was it really Elsa Frost that let another man do things to her only Jack should, or was it Snow Queen? Maybe, underneath the layers of programming, Elsa was just as disgusted by herself.

Against all odds, he feels his anger ebb bit by bit through his breath, his _own_ conditioning to control his emotions… and the rationality he never thought he had.

Stupid Aster. Stupid empathy. Stupid love.

"You weren't unfaithful."

Her voice comes back faint, and confused. "What?"

He turns back to look at her, eyes radiating resignation to the inescapable truth - even if he has every right to be enraged.

Slowly, he returns to his seat heavily flops down, head supported by his loose right fist. "You can't be unfaithful to a man you thought was dead."

Her mouth opens and closes, like she was expecting him to rage out and storm away, and had prepared accordingly. Blank, she stares at him in surprise. "I… don't know what to say…"

"For starters, you can tell me one thing… did you _love_ him?"

To his ill-concealed relief, she quickly shakes her head. Smiles with reassurance, too. "No. Jack, Nightfall programmed me to feel nothing except for the satisfaction of a successful job. I know the cliché of ' _it was meaningless'_ but… it truly was. I felt nothing except for… well… what you'd expect sex to feel like."

Jack snorts with dark cynicism, and frowns at the blinding lights above the cell. "Yeah, well, I hope he wasn't as good as I was."

"He wasn't."

Jack gives her a funny look. "I was being flippant."

Her smile turns into a knowing half-smirk. "Flippant, yes, but sincere. There are some parts of you that are unchanged… and if you really want to know… while he was skilled, there was always something missing… so I was never truly satisfied."

"But you still did things to him you never did to me! You obviously enjoyed it enough to _keep_ doing it!"

The words, fuelled by the anger still dwelling in his heart, leave his mouth in a sharp bark before he can stop them. Elsa's smile falls like a stone, and her eyes meet the electrified floor.

"Yes," she whispers, like his snap has chased away any confidence she had. "As I said, being unfaithful is my biggest regret."

There's a voice in his mind that calls bullshit, but he knows if he wastes time on her infidelity like a dog with a chew toy, he won't have time to know the rest.

However, just as he decides to take the line of questioning elsewhere, his mind brings to the front a memory of a Division operation in Istanbul to take out a known terrorist and facilitator… and Snow Queen herself. "This guy you slept with… was he called Hans? Auburn hair, lame sideburns?"

Elsa stiffens, and a frown cuts across her face like a knife through butter. "Why… yes? How did you…"

Her face slackens in dawning comprehension, and her shoulders droop. "You were the one who killed him, weren't you?"

Jack nods. "Yep. Reason I know is his last words were, ' _you were lucky to be married to such a hot body like hers. She smells of peppermint… and the way she rolled those hips over me, screaming my name? Can't get enough of it'."_

Elsa visibly shudders as her face screws up in disgust, and her eyes glance once to the toilet. "Ugh. Chauvinist pig."

"I think pigs might take offense to that."

She looks up at him, sees the half-smirk across his lips… and emits a soft chuckle. "I thought you were going to leave me."

"Oh, I wanted to-" Jack turns to the side,throwing a heart glare up to the security camera peering down at them like some kind of voyeur, and elevates his volume, "-and if it wasn't for some _annoyingly wise and loved up Aussie_ , and the fact that I promised, I would have."

"I have a lot to thank Aster for, it seems."

Jack turns back to study her through the corner of his eye for a few moments, before getting comfortable - well, as much as one can get in a hard steel chair - and pulling his black suit jacket around him as he takes the questions elsewhere. "Yeah, you do. So how did you get from there… to here? What happened?"

Her face softens, and a smile… a warm, loving smile pulls at her lips like a curtain. "In a word? You."

Jack's eyebrows shoot into his hair. "Me."

"Yes," she says, nodding slowly. "You. Do you remember Paris?"

Like he could forget.

* * *

_Thrown down by a brutal slam, Snow Queen hit the apartment floor like a sack of bricks, her lungs forcing out a strangled cry of pain. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jack dove for his Glock, cast aside under the bed at the start of the vicious melee. His hands lacing around the handle, he whirled in one fluid movement and aimed his sights squarely between her eyes._

_Realising, however, she had also scrambled to her feet and managed to grasp her rifle, and had it pointed right at his heart. The familiarity was all too acute._

_With eyes of infuriation, she glared in surprise and piqued confusion at him. Her aim was steady, despite the way her lungs rose and fell with each gasping breath._

" _Who_ are _you?" she hissed. "Not many people could ambush me like you—and I know them all!"_

_Jack said nothing, and merely tilted his masked head._

" _Tell me, before I end you!"_

_A mocking chuckle escaped his lips. Still his aim was true. Still his finger was, a hair's breadth from a gunshot._

" _A little overconfident in ourselves, aren't we, Elsa?"_

_Her eyes widen. "How do you know my name?"_

_Slowly, Jack's left hand rose, each finger outstretched as a silent sign of non-hostility. Snow Queen's eyes darted once to the rising limb, and nodded. Inch by inch, his hand moved to grip the underside of his mask, and in one brisk movement, pulled it up and away._

_Snow Queen's eyes went wide as she sucked in a shocked breath. Slowly her head shook, and though her aim was miraculously steady, her feet found two steps back._

" _No… no. It can't be," she whispered. "You're dead… I_ killed _you."_

_It was then that her aim faltered - and Jack took his chance. Lunging forward, he slapped the rifle aside and used his body to slam her against the wall, pinning her rifle hand well out of pressing the barrel of his Glock…_

_...right over her heart._

_There was no fear in her eyes, only confusion. Bewilderment. Shock. Like she'd seen a ghost._

_Smirking with victorious malevolence, Jack pressed the gun a little harder as he leaned in, and whispered:_

" _You missed."_

_The sound of car engines outside echoed through the apartment room, as well as the piercing noise of sirens along with the alternating flashes light painting the walls in vibrant red and blue._

_Someone must have heard their battle and called the police._

" _Next time, you won't be so lucky," Jack growled, before making his escape out of the apartment door._

* * *

"Looking back, I think that was the moment my conditioning began to fall apart," Elsa says, looking down as she plays with her fingers. "Seeing you again started a chain reaction… it was like the part of me trapped by all the programming started to gain strength."

"In what way?"

Elsa straightens up, and the fingers once fiddling with themselves move to rest patiently on her thighs.

"In the days following Paris… I began to remember…" her head tilts to the side, as she winces slightly, "...well, that's not strictly true. I could always remember, but the memories were just… nothing more than a video recording-"

She stands, and takes two steps toward the screen, lacing her hands together in front of her. That pose… it's classic Elsa Frost. Elegant, regal, poised. Many of the things he fell in love with… and for a few happy seconds, nothing else matters.

"-but as the days went on, every memory carried with it an emotion. Guilt. Remorse. Anger. I used to think back to our days together with no feelings but… whenever I thought of you… my heart would break, little by little. I would recall the people I killed, and feel utter disgust and shame. That I could take life with no hesitation, that I could sleep with another man… and as the days became weeks, weeks became months, I hated myself all the more. I couldn't function… my programming was fighting my real self…"

Jack leans forward - every word she speaks, he hangs onto like oxygen. "Did Nightfall get suspicious?"

Elsa shrugs. "Probably. I do know that I began to question why, if I was their best assassin, they needed to recondition me every two months."

"I guess they wanted to ensure your loyalty."

"Maybe. In any case, when I felt myself begin to fall apart, I told them I was going after the… _unknown attacker…_ that ambushed me in Paris."

"Did they buy it?"

She shrugs again. "I didn't stay long enough to find out. I transferred all my money into an offshore account, taking just enough for me to live, destroyed everything they could use to track me,and disappeared. Nightfall was _very_ good at teaching its members how to be off the grid."

"What did you do?"

She backs up toward the bed once again, however she lowers herself onto it with far more grace and elegance than before. Her hands lace themselves together on her lap, and she looks at him with distant eyes.

"I found a nice little motel in the middle of nowhere, run by a lovely woman named Belle, and… let my programming fall apart like a house of cards. For weeks, I let every memory of what I did run wild, let myself feel every emotion. Up until then it was like everything that happened was someone else's life but… I knew I had to face what I did - to do anything else would be a lie, and an insult to the memory of the people I murdered."

A hand wipes below her right eye.

"And then you surrendered to Division." Jack rises from the chair, hands hanging loosely at his sides whilst he approaches the cell. "Why?"

Distance becomes peaceful acceptance in her eyes, yet her lips twist into a smile that doesn't lift Jack's heart as it used to, but clenches it in sadness.

"I have committed horrors in Nightfall's name, Jack. It's only right that I answer for them." She too rises from her bed, and takes a couple of steps toward the cell wall. The faint frustration at the presence of bulletproof plexiglass between them sparks like a candle in his gut. "When I felt I could function for long enough without breaking down into tears, I surrendered myself to Division, believing that maybe, in some way, if I told them all I knew of Nightfall, it would go some way to atoning for my crimes. That maybe… I could see you again before a cell like this-" she pauses to give the cell around her a vague look, "-became my permanent reality."

There it is, the fixed point in time Jack had been subconsciously avoiding in the back of his mind. Elsa's time here is finite - soon, Division agents will take her away, never to be seen again. He'd be lying if the thought didn't scare the daylights out of him.

This could be the last time he ever sees his wife… and he can't even touch her.

"Well," he croaks, aware of and not bothered by the wordless message the cracks his voice sends, "thanks to your intel, Division's already planning a multi-pronged operation to cripple Nightfall's activities around the world. If it works out… you will have done us a solid."

Her smile takes on a satisfied hint. "Then it is worth it."

For the first time since he walked in, Jack's smile is genuine. Free of bitterness, cynicism or mockery, he smiles with affection - for he knows that even after all that's happened, the woman inside the cell is still his heart and soul, her yin to his yang.

"If I may ask…" she begins with uncertain hesitation, her fingers playing with each other, "how did you survive?"

Jack utters a single chuckle, and begins to languidly pace the outside of her cell. If he's in no hurry… then maybe he can delude himself into possessing the gift of stopping time.

"It was like I said in Paris - you missed. One inch lower and… we wouldn't be having this conversation." One hand goes up to scratch at his temple, and then the nape of his neck. "But the trauma of the bullets and the surgery put me in a coma for about six months. Apparently, our neighbor - you know, the one who was _supposed_ to be on vacation - heard the gunshots and immediately called the cops. Soon as Moonlight found out where I was, they transferred me to a secret military hospital. Woke up to find Moonlight had been dismantled by the U.N."

"Is that when you joined Division?"

"Yeah. Aster came to me a few weeks after I woke up. Told me that a new task force had been set up, an anti-terrorist black-ops unit called Division. They operated in the shadows, without bureaucracy and red tape, and there was a place for me if I wanted it."

Elsa nods sagely. "Nightfall feared Division. They feared an organisation that would ruthlessly use their own tactics against them."

"Mmm." Jack pockets his hands. "So I jumped at the chance - well, as much as a guy stuck in a hospital bed can jump. They trained me, gave me some conditioning, and… well, the rest is history."

"Paris?"

Jack's lips tug a little - tiring of being stood, being distant, he pulls up the material at his thigh and lowers himself to the floor, bringing his knees up while he leans against the glass. A flurry of movement, and Elsa does the same… right next to him.

It's the closest he's been to her.

"Yep. Paris was… the end of a long operation to draw you out. Division figured if I did enough damage to Nightfall's members, then eventually they'd get pissed enough to send you."

"Oh, they did," Elsa chuckled under her breath. "Key members were disappearing left, right, and centre, and the assassin was like a ghost. By the time I was deployed, Pitch was livid."

Jack's head dips as a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "Mmm. So when we had word Nightfall had charged their elite sniper with eliminating this asshole that had killed their best assets… and Hans… we leaked intel that I'd be in Paris for another target."

"Me," she says. "The target being me."

"Yep, though I didn't know until a couple of days before the ambush, when I made you at the Louvre. Seeing you again… my mission was to kill you but… I couldn't do it. Couldn't take the shot in the apartment-" Jack's right hand tremble slightly as it dives into the silk inner pocket of his jacket, and his eyes take on a wistful look. "-because even after all that happened…"

He pulls out a circular object - a silver wedding band. That thing has never left his side, not for eight years. He stares at it for a few moments, before slipping it back on its rightful finger - all under Elsa's shimmering, emotion-filled eyes.

"...I still loved you."

He looks up at her. Their eyes meet… and the world falls away. She chews at her lips as his heart hammers an anguished rhythm against his ribcage, and the tears they'd _both_ been holding back slide down unfettered by restraint. God, she still looked beautiful, even in a prisoner jumpsuit. She's scared, that much is obvious to him, but there's a resolute strength to her… and as the seconds go by, Jack feels himself drift away in her eyes.

Three loud bangs echo from the door upstairs, jerking him out of his trance with a start. Throwing a hearty glare at the source, he yells out for a few more minutes, before gazing intently at his ring.

Five seconds ago, he could happily lose himself in her eyes. Now… it hurts too much to look at her.

"You know what's going to happen to you, right?"

It's a _stupid_ question which need not be asked as he already knows the answer. Nevertheless, she obliges.

"I will be taken from here and incarcerated in a hole so deep I'll never see daylight again."

Her tone is so matter-of-fact, so honest, it pierces his heart like a dagger. His eyes snap to meet hers, faint incredulity radiating like waves.

"And you're _okay_ with that?"

Though her eyes shimmer with sadness, the smile she gives him speaks of acceptance. "I have killed more people than you and I have digits combined, Jack. I have hurt people. I nearly killed _you."_ He can almost _feel_ her hand rest upon his shoulder. "I deserve nothing less."

He pulls in a breath to argue, but he knows there's no point. The cogs are turning, the machine of justice is rolling on. The inevitable cannot be delayed.

"I could…" he croaks, "I could look at making your accommodation more comfortable."

She laughs, a sweet, angelic laugh he's missed so _damn_ much that it hurts to hear. "Thank you for not lying to me by saying you could try and make me a free woman."

Jack scoffs. "You know me. I never lie."

It's kind of a half-truth. Working for Division entails a certain degree of deceit and obfuscation, but to her? Jack has never lied.

"I do - in fact, I think I understand now."

"What?"

Her head tilts slightly. "Why Nightfall had to constantly maintain my programming." She shifts a few degrees left to see him better. "I visited your grave every year. Birthday, our wedding anniversary, the day of your death - come rain or shine, no matter what, I was there, laying a rose at your gravestone. I couldn't comprehend why I had this strange compulsion, this need to do it for someone who, at the time, I thought meant nothing to me… but now I understand."

Her finger lifts up to trace a slow, tender line down the cell wall, and her eyes take on a wistful look. "Nightfall had to constantly maintain my programming, because there was something stronger underneath it - my love for you."

Though his heart swells with warmth, the words ' _that is so cliché'_ threaten to slip out… at least, until the door hammers again three times. The pleasant warmth makes way for a blossom of anguished aching, and he realises - he's out of time. Swallowing thickly, he pushes himself up from the floor just as she does, with as much reluctance as her. Turning to face her, his eyes burn with hot tears, and his heart threatens to break.

"I guess this is it," he mumbles.

Her smile is sad, but reassuring. Well, he figures it's _supposed_ to be - but it's not working.

"Thank you… for being here with me," she whispers.

Jack sighs, his brow furrowing in pain, and in the overwhelming desire to at least _pretend_ he can feel her touch, he raises both hands and feathers them across the plexiglass. Elsa, her smile widening, presses her hands against the same places, and as he leans forward to rest his head against the transparent wall, she does the same.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye, my love," she whispers. "Don't forget me."

He lingers for a few more seconds before tearing himself away, knowing if he stayed, he'd never leave. He promised her, after all. He forces his feet onwards to the stairs, leaving behind the love of his life to her fate, turning for one last look as she waves him a sombre farewell.

The sobbing he hears as he climbs the steps shatters what's left of his heart.


	2. Rendezvous Avec L'Amour

**Rendezvous Avec L'Amour**

The pain in Jack's chest has not abated since he left her in the cell - if anything, it's getting worse. It was so much easier before he walked into the underground cell room, where the pain was dulled by the anger but… now there's only a broken heart as he unlocks and pushes open the door to his apartment.

Aster had suggested to North that Jack should take a couple of days off counterterrorism operations and assassination missions for personal reasons, and the bulky, ancient-yet-spritely man was only too happy to oblige. Of course, Jack would rather use work to take his mind off the heartache, but North's orders are law, and Jack already disobeyed them once in Paris so… there he is. Preparing to spend two days in his apartment, wondering how the hell he's going to come to terms with rediscovering his love for Elsa Frost, only to watch her be led away by Division agents to a prison complex even the NSA don't know about.

His jacket pocket vibrates with the object inside it, and with the hand _not_ occupied by a bottle of whisky reaches in at an awkward angle to procure the phone frantically calling for his attention.

He glances at the screen.

_Caller: Kangaroo_

_Slide left to answer_

Sighing, he readies himself for a barrage of questions as to his wellbeing, and obeys the onscreen instruction before raising the phone to his ear.

"Sup, Bunny?"

" _G'day, mate. How're you doin'?"_

Looks like the day of stupid questions isn't over yet. It's on the tip of Jack's tongue to reply, " _Me? Oh, I'm peachy. I said goodbye a few hours ago to the love of my life, having forgiven her for her crimes, and all I can think about is how she'll be in a tiny cell underground with no natural daylight, food I wouldn't give to a zombie, for the rest of her natural life. I'm constantly fighting the urge to find out where this place is so I can break her out, and of all the people to feel guilty, I'm the one. So, yeah, I'm just fantastic."_

He settles with a simple, "Fine." He taps the door closed behind him with his left heel. "So what's up?"

" _There's something you need to know, mate. It's about Elsa."_

Jack's heart undergoes a series of flips, clenches and sinks. Three different emotions all fight for supremacy upon hearing the last three words: dread, affection… anguish. His mind automatically bursts into an explosion of possibilities, risks… inevitabilities.

"What?" is all he can muster.

" _The transport taking Elsa to prison was hit a few hours ago."_

Jack's throat goes dry. The number of possibilities halves… and the remainder isn't good.

"Nightfall?"

" _Yeah,"_ Aster's voice sounds oddly calm. " _By Nightfall. The agents escorting her are down."_

An exasperated sigh escapes his lips that goes with the pinch of the bridge of his nose like peanut butter and jelly - though it's a minor miracle he hasn't dropped the bottle in the process.

The possibilities get halved again - to one.

"Let me guess - no sign of Elsa?"

" _Not a trace."_

Resigning himself to the very clear possibility that the past few years are about to start all over again, Jack places the bottle of whisky on the small metal table next to the door and prepares himself.

"So Nightfall just got their top assassin back. Great." He turns back to the door. "Gimme an hour to get back to the unit-"

" _Hold your horses, mate. There's more."_

Jack's hand pauses over the doorknob. "Come again?"

" _We found Nightfall's getaway car a few miles east. Four mooks, all unconscious and tied up at the side of the road. Best part? One of them had 'A Parting Gift' drawn on his shirt in mud. Pretty sure you can draw your own conclusion from that."_

Well… that's not the scenario his mind had drawn out - yet, a better one than the alternative. She was free… at least, as free as a wanted assassin could be.

He can't help but smile at the mental image of Elsa laying the smackdown on Nightfall's goons… and _not_ killing them.

" _North wants us to launch a search and apprehend operation."_

Jack opens his mouth to answer, but the faint sound of classical music drifts into the apartment. He looks toward his bedroom, ears disseminating the melody.

That's when he recognises it.

Swan Lake.

"I don't think we need to worry about her now," he murmurs, a warm smile tugging at his lips. With silent feet, he approaches the bedroom. "She's not gonna be a problem for us anymore."

Aster's voice, though distorted slightly by the call, sounds nothing but skeptical. " _How'd you figure?"_

Carefully, he pushes open the door with his free hand.

In his bedroom is situated a wide three-door wardrobe, with the middle door a full-length mirror. In _front_ of the mirror?

Elsa.

Her back to him, unaware of his presence, dressed in a nondescript hooded sweatshirt and black leggings, she extends and curls her legs in a graceful ballet routine, her arms spreading out and closing in on her body as though she's still on stage. She glides with poise and elegance, each movement flowing fluidly, but carefully into the next, like she hasn't forgotten a single step in the routine. She leans forward as her right leg lifts perfectly straight and horizontal behind her, arms spread wide for balance, and Jack loses himself in a trance to the music and the elegant display before him.

It's really her.

" _Hello?"_

Smiling, as his feet softly carry him toward her like a sailor to a siren, Jack murmurs, "Call it a gut feeling," and hangs up.

Elsa launches into a _fouetté en tournant,_ but eight years without practice leaves her initial spin and movement rusty - and a misstep causes her to nearly topple over were it not for her reflexes. Huffing with clear frustration, she collects herself and sets her right foot behind her left, ready to start the routine from scratch.

"I said you wouldn't forget."

She whirls around, eyes wide with surprise, and her right hand lashes around to something hidden in the back of her leggings.

"I _didn't_ say you wouldn't be rusty."

"Jack!" she breathes, and the sly hand moves back into sight. "What… w-what are you doing here?"

Jack leans against the bedroom doorframe, wearing one hell of a smirk. "I live here… better question is: what are _you_ doing here?"

Her mouth opens and closes amidst a blank expression, and her eyes turn inwards. "I… I don't know…"

"Okay—how did you find this place?"

"Oh… well, I assume you're aware of the ambush?"

Jack nods, and Elsa promptly launches into an explanation: in the moments prior to the attack, one of the agents escorting her was accessing Division's database through his smartphone. In the chaos of the ambush, the agent left the phone in the car when he got out to engage Nightfall - Elsa saw an opportunity, and took it. Once she had incapacitated Nightfall's goons, she searched the database for Jack's known addresses, picked the one he was most likely to use - Aster _did_ warn him he fell back on the Chris Kirk alias too often - and headed straight there… after stopping at a store to steal more appropriate clothing, of course.

"After all that's happened… you still came here."

Elsa shrugs slowly, in a _what-can-I-tell-you_ way. "I… I just had to. Maybe this is where I'll be safest, or… maybe I just wanted to be close to you, or…"

She trails off, her eyes attracted to the movement of Jack's right hand as he holds it in the air with his palm toward her. Under his gaze, her chest rises and falls with deep, tense breaths, and her left hand slowly climbs higher and higher, the distance between them closing inch by inch. Jack's heart thumps against his chest, pointlessly fuelling his light-headed mind.

His hand leaps the last few inches, and the most beautiful sensation he thought he'd never feel again makes his heart sing - the simple touch of her hand, her _skin_ against his. A trembling whimper escapes her lips, and her shimmering eyes meet his a second before she throws herself at him, burying her face into his neck whilst their arms embrace each other tightly enough to suffocate.

To have her in his arms after so long… it's as though the world ceases to be relevant, that nothing else matters but their loving embrace.

"I thought I'd never get this chance again," she sobs softly into his neck. "I thought I'd lost you forever…"

Jack lets out a ragged breath, and strokes her back with all the reassurance he can happily muster. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm here now."

She pulls away from him, and the absence of heaven in his arms is assuaged by the way her hands cup his face, and the tearful smile on her lips.

"I love you so much, Jack."

"I love you too," he says, grinning impishly, "but you might wanna reel it in - the world's deadliest sniper assassin in such a mess? Imagine the rumours."

"I don't care." She strokes his eyebrows. "For the first time in eight years… I can touch you."

Heart threatening to burst, he murmurs, "Then let me step it up a level," and surges his lips to capture hers in a sweet, passionate kiss. She squeaks into his mouth, but it isn't long before the squeaks become satisfied moans as her hands slide down to his chest while his cup her face to keep her there, two pairs of lips moving as one. He can almost _feel_ her melt against him.

God, how good it feels to kiss her again, to feel her body against his. It's addicting; every second that passes, his heart desires more of her, to hear her contented purrs and feel her fingers dig into his chest.

Too addicting for her, it seems - with a gasp for breath, she tears herself away, panting slightly through reddened lips. "Sorry," she says breathlessly, "it's all so overwhelming for me."

The left corner of Jack's mouth tugs into a smile, and he uses a finger to delicately slip a few strands of her hair behind her right ear.

"What do you say we slow down a bit?"

She looks at him with the same eyes as when they exchanged vows. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I got a bottle of whisky I _was_ going to drown my sorrows in." He signals behind him with his head. "How about we use it to celebrate instead?"

Her lips cut into a wide smile of approval.

"I think that sounds lovely."

* * *

The next hour is spent doing just that.

With glasses of amber liquid that are rarely empty for long, Jack reminisces with Elsa about the good times in their relationship, from Jack's once-appalling skills at the shooting range when a carnival visited Burgess, to the time Elsa was chased by a particularly hungry raccoon.

She asks of his exploits in Division, and though he cannot go into great detail, he tells what he can - and not once does she go into her missions as Snow Queen. Perhaps it's still too raw, or that she would rather forget.

Either way, as he sits in the comfort of his leather sofa - obscenely good hazard pay, what with being an assassin, allows for the nicer things in life - with Elsa's feet over his lap, he pretends time has frozen outside, leaving the moment in the apartment to last forever. It's a habit Jack easily falls back into; after every training session, rehearsal and show, he would massage her gorgeously toned legs and feet while listening to her wax poetic about the performance. She never needed it, what with physiotherapists being on hand, but she said she loved how it made her feel special, and it always made Jack feel important, so… she happily rolled with it.

Being able to carry out the simple act of massaging her feet? It's like the past eight years never happened.

They did, however, and it's not the only thing that's visibly on his mind. Visible, at least, to Elsa… who has always been adept at recognising his facial tics. So much for body language training.

"What are you thinking?"

Jack catches her eye as she looks at him, half-filled glass held on her chest between three dainty fingers. She regards him with a studying but open, receptive eye.

"Huh?"

"You've been massaging the same spot for the past two minutes." She smiles knowingly. "It's textbook you when you're lost in thought."

Jack's gaze lingers upon her for a few more moments before an awkward chuckle breaks out from behind an equally awkward smile, and his thumbs immediately relocate to her heel. "I dunno. I was… I guess I'm wondering what your plans are."

Because nothing lasts forever, not even the theft of a well-deserved moment of romantic peace.

"How do you mean?"

"Well," Jack leans over her feet to snatch a sip from the glass of whisky on the nearby coffee table, "even _if_ North listens to Aster, and _if_ Division considers you not as much of a threat as you used to be, you're still a wanted fugitive. I… I'm just curious about where you'll go from here."

Her glass rises halfway toward her lips, and the liquid is swilled around a few times before she takes a quick sip. "I do have something in mind, actually."

Jack's interest is immediately piqued. "Like what?"

"Well," her glass returns to her chest, "visiting your grave was not the only compulsion I was forced to obey. For some unknown reason, I was also compelled to secretly purchase storage lockers and the occasional safe house around the country, and deposit weapons in each one." She snorts a single chuckle. "Maybe I was ensuring my survival should Nightfall turn against me."

"Someone's been a busy little bee," Jack says, eyebrows raised with amusement.

Elsa's smile widens. "Indeed. My plan is to use those lockers, and the weapons therein, to hunt Nightfall down and take back every single piece of my soul they took from me. Nightfall stole eight years of my life, turned me into a weapon, and made me hurt people I care about. I intend to repay them in kind."

There's a resolve, a ferocious confidence to her voice that arouses, scares, and fills him with admiration all in one. If anyone can do it, his beautiful assassin Elsa could…

...but should she do it alone?

"I've got an idea."

Her head tilts as her eyes slightly narrow with interest. "What is that?"

"See… being the best counter-terrorism assassin in Division - not my words, for the record - I've amassed quite a bit of paid leave. Couple of months. I was thinking-" his fingers move to gently massage her toes, "-how about _we_ hunt down Nightfall and take back your soul. You and me, side by side, together."

Her head tilts further, but there's no confusion. "I think I absolutely adore that idea, Jack - but you and I both know Nightfall is much too big, too widespread to be taken down in two months."

Jack holds up a _wait-for-it_ finger. "Which brings me to Part Two of the _Jack and Elsa Frost's Road Trip To Take Down Evil._ When my leave's over, I'm gonna have to go back to work, right? And it's a safe bet that what I'll be doing is assassinations as part of Division's operation - the one your information has helped set up. So my plan is that when I'm assigned a target, somehow - through no fault of my own, of course - the target's information and last known location is _accidentally_ leaked to a _very_ special, very beautiful third party."

He leans over to pick up the glass, before sitting back and making a show of inspecting it. "The third party and I meet up at the target's last known location, hunt them down, take them out… maybe see the sights and enjoy a romantic walk or two, then part ways and return home. Rinse, repeat, until Nightfall has been dismantled one by one… so we can be together."

Elsa's smile widens to halfway between an impressed curl and an amused smirk. "You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?"

"What can I say?" Jack shrugs. "Just like the boys at the _Snuggly Duckling:_ I had a dream."

Elsa leans over to place her glass on the coffee table, and shuffles forward to rest upon his lap. Curling her arms around his upper shoulders, she strokes the side of his face as she gazes upon him with all the love in the world. "And it's a dream with which I am more than happy to be on board. I can think of nothing I would rather do."

"Awesome," Jack says as he drapes his right arm around her lower back. "I'll book my leave effective tomo-"

Her finger on his lips silences him as she takes his glass too and places it next to hers, and there's a sparkle in her eyes that roots him to the sofa. A predatory look.

"I _just_ thought of something I'd rather do."

Any questions Jack has as to _what_ that something is are instantly answered by the unbuttoning of his shirt by her dainty, lithe fingers, and how she shifts position to straddle him. Momentarily nervous, he asks through a desert-dry mouth, "I thought you were feeling overwhelmed?"

"That was before a few glasses of whisky, a lovely foot massage, a long talk and an extremely delightful idea, and besides-"

Whether she's giving up on the buttons or has simply lost patience, his chest feels the cold air of the apartment as she tears the shirt apart.

"-there are things I never did with you." She yanks down his shirt to his wrists, before pulling off her sweater and the plain white T-shirt underneath, revealing her perky, aroused breasts flushed in an enticing red for none but him to see - and an inevitable reaction takes place in his pants.

"I think it's time I rectified that iniquity."

Hot breath brushes across his lips a split second before hers crashes against them. She kisses him passionately, violently, as though starved of food and presented with a three course meal, holding his head in place whilst she presses her chest against his. For a few seconds, Jack feels like he's about to be devoured alive - especially when her lips move to his neck, sucking and nibbling at the skin - then he figures her voracious appetite is down to being starved of human affection.

Specifically, _his._

So he gives himself over to the tightness in his chest and the burning fire in his abdomen. Hands lash out to grasp at her ass, squeezing and clawing like a hungry massage, and in response, she mewls into his neck whilst grinding herself against him.

"I missed this," she breathes as she slides down his lap, kissing and nibbking at his chest, running her fingers over his abs and paying particular attention to his scars. Deprived of her glorious butt, Jack's hands undergo a moment of confusion before gliding across her naked sides, revelling in the sensation of her skin.

"I can tell," he chokes with a shaky voice as she sucks at his right nipple. "This is different than I remember…"

She looks up at him upon hearing that, her lips briefly leaving his skin, and her eyes radiate concern. "Do you want me to tone it down? I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable."

"I didn't… _ah…_ say that…"

Her lips curl into a wide, pleased smile. "I'm glad. Now… there's someone else I haven't seen in a long time," she purrs with a husky voice as she slides off his lap to kneel between his legs, "and I believe there's something in the way."

Fingers nimbly unbutton his pants before yanking both them and his boxers down in one, releasing that which had been straining against the fabric to stand tall and proud. "There he is..." she murmurs with a playful tone.

Anything on Jack's mind goes flying out of the window when her tongue slips out to lick along the length of his cock before wolfing down the head, her cheeks hollowing with glorious suction. His head flops onto the backrest in sudden bliss, eyes closed as he feels her lips inch lower and lower, the wet sound of sloppy sucks and contented feminine moans against his length mingling with his groans of delight.

A sudden surge of pleasure as her tongue circles the tip causes him to snap his head up, and his arousal only deepens - Elsa's gaze is fixed unblinkingly on his as her head bobs up and down, her moans and mewls growing in pitch as her eyebrows peak, her right hand pumping his length while her left is nowhere to be seen. Faint paranoia grips his mind - hidden limbs tend to attract suspicion - and his eyes automatically follow her left arm down from her shoulder.

Which is when he realises precisely _what_ she's doing with her hand, making her sounds of bliss ramp up and her eyebrows peak - she's playing with herself.

As if to draw attention back to her, Elsa briefly releases his length… and then takes him to the base, _whole._

Throwing his head back, Jack chokes, "Fuck… way different than I remember."

There's a gasp of air, before Elsa asks. "In what way?"

Considering she's still slowly pumping him at this point, it's a miracle Jack can even string two sentences together. "This. Us. When we made love, you were always so self-conscious, bashful, reserved. Lights off kind of thing. You never really did what… well… you _just_ did."

There's a dirty giggle as she touches her lips to the base of his dick and gently slides up to the tip. "Well… when you can't feel emotion, you can't feel shame, or embarrassment. You can't get shy. Let's just say… I no longer have inhibitions."

She's not wrong. The Elsa Frost before him is so… _sexual._ Everything about her just radiates sex, from the look in her eyes to the way her hand gently yet firmly tugs him. She knows exactly what to do to please, entice, arouse, and there's a _confidence_ about her that's just so damn alluring.

But then he remembers how she cultivated such experience, where she learned such skill… and with whom.

Mood-killer ahoy.

"Jack."

The way she calls his name, firmness in place of seductiveness, and how her eyes speak of reassurance and honesty instantly grabs his attention, and he realises - he's wearing his heart on his sleeve.

"I know what you're thinking," she says slowly, each word spoken with care, "and I understand. I just want you to know - that ' _something_ ' that was missing when I slept with him?"

Jack nods.

"That _someone_ is sitting right here in front of me." She smiles. "You."

Though part of him would entertain the ache, it is swiftly banished away by a flattered half-smirk across his lips.

"That is _so_ cliché," he chuckles, "and I love you."

"I love you too-" she leans up to brush her lips close to his, her voice dropping to a murmur, "-and you know me. Ever the cheesy romantic."

Jack plants a quick peck on her lips just before she pushes herself to her feet and turns around, and with a middle finger on either side, she slides down her leggings whilst bending forward - giving him a front row seat to _everything._

"Holy shit," he breathes, captivated by _those damn hips_ and _that damn ass._

Elsa lets loose a sultry giggle as she gives him a coy look over her shoulder, replete with a _not-so-innocent_ finger between smirking teeth. "Like I said - no inhibitions."

It's a statement she reinforces when, humming in contentment, her hips start to sensually gyrate, her arms slowly extending to the ceiling before one hand makes a show of stroking down the other. Rooted to the spot, entranced by the dance before him, Jack can only watch with a hilariously gaping mouth as, whilst her ass sways in a tempting circle, both hands glide down her body like she can't get enough - over her breasts where she cups and squeezes, down her stomach to her entrance with a pleasured mewl, round to her hips and _achingly_ slowly up her buttock cheeks.

"Enjoying the show?" Like she even needs to ask. Jack's raging boner is already _painful._

"...uh...w-what?"

Elsa lets out a seductive giggle. "Good - because you're the only person I've done this for."

Suddenly, it makes everything better.

And more intolerable.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, Jack growls, " _c'mere,"_ and turns Elsa around by her hips, pulling her close to trace a line of kisses down her stomach.

"Ja-ack," she whines breathlessly. "Don't tease me… I need you inside…"

"Let me love on you a minute," Jack murmurs on the skin above her entrance. "All things being equal."

She huffs, but it's a playful one. "Fine… but only because I missed that tongue of yours."

Grinning with victory, Jack pulls her with him as he lays back against the sofa. Following his wordless direction, Elsa climbs up onto the sofa, her right leg held straight while supporting herself over his face with her left knee on the backrest. Her scent of arousal clouding his senses, his tongue seeks out her clitoris, causing yelps and moans to fill the room as he teases, kisses and sucks the sensitive bud.

" _Fuck…"_ she breathes, her left hand entwining itself in his snow white hair while she grinds herself against his mouth - it's redundant, as his hands are already grasping and kneading at her ass to keep her sex on his lips, slick with her wetness.

He tends to her long enough to admire her endurance; her body has shaken and trembled with an orgasm already, and her toned, strong legs are all that's keeping her upright. Being a professional ballerina and top assassin does wonders for one's physique, it seems. Maybe Jack should take up salsa dancing.

"No more," she whines. "I can't wait any longer. I need all of you."

Without giving him a chance to protest, she pushes off the backrest with her knee and twists aside, allowing Jack to follow her silent direction and heft his body up from the sofa. By the time he turns around, erection standing proudly, Elsa's already kneeling in position with her derriere temptingly offered to him, arms across the backrest, back dipped, and gazing at him in an expectant-impatient way.

He grips her hip with his left hand, feeling the muscles underneath twitch in response, and guides himself inside her with his right. She cries out with pleasure, her walls clenching around him.

" _FUCK!"_ she moans. "Yes! _This_ is what I've been missing!"

"Me, or my dick?" Jack says, snickering.

"Both!" she snaps. "Any more stupid questions, or are you going to fuck me senseless?"

"Whatever my assassin wife wants."

Gripping her hips, he thrusts into her searing hot, wet core, each plunge causing a bout of loud and breathless moans. She clenches around him like a vice, drawing him further inside - if heaven felt like anything, this was it.

"Oh God—fuck—this is amazing," she squeals, before a cry of his name bursts through the room.

She begs him to go deeper, so with his left hand moving to grip her shoulder, he thrusts in as far as he can. She throws her head back with a yell, and when her hips gyrate around his length, he reaches places inside her he never did before. "Fuck—! Don't stop… you're filling me so deep!"

The dirty talk? That's new - but rather than turning him off, it only heightens the carnal haze in his mind, sending his arousal to insane levels and intensifying his addiction to her.

So when she cries for him to go faster, fuck her harder, it's like something primal switches on. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the room, mingling with her moans of his name and his grunts of hers, and her right hand disappears under her to tend to her clit while he thrusts.

And when she comes, she comes _hard,_ screaming his name to the heavens above and depths below, clamping down on his length. It's a minor miracle he hasn't joined her - three cheers for Division conditioning, stamina and endurance training, it seems.

Panting and gasping for breath, Elsa pulls herself forward just enough for him to slip out, and slumps her head down on her arm, gazing vacantly at him whilst he flops down beside her.

"That was… _wow…"_

"Satisfied?" Jack gives her a smirk.

She shoots him a look. "My head… is in space. My legs are… who knows… and I just came the hardest I have done in eight years. What do _you_ think?"

Her eyes then drift down to his crotch and the unimpressed look becomes wide-eyed incredulity. "You _still_ haven't come yet?"

Jack looks down at his length, which still stands tall and proud, and shrugs. "Dunno. Side effect of Division training, I guess."

She looks back at him and blinks, before shaking her head. "Looks like I'm not the only one who's changed. Give me a moment to recover, and we'll rectify _that_ iniquity, too."

"Alright." Jack grins at her, before pushing himself up from the sofa. "Means I can show you something."

"As long as it's not your big guy," she waves him away. "I don't want to have survived all these years to die by orgasm at the hand of my husband's penis."

"Wouldn't be a bad way to go," Jack says as he circles his sofa and makes his way to a shelving unit embedded in the wall behind it.

"I forbid you from putting it on my gravestone."

Jack can _feel_ the warning finger pointed at him as he takes a small brown pouch from the highest shelf, before returning to her and squatting down before her.

Her eyes travel down to the pouch in his hand. "What is it?"

"When the cops finished their investigation into my murder - Division kinda stepped in and leaned on them to close it - one of the detectives… Hopps, I think… handed over the evidence they'd collected. One piece in particular was left behind by the perp."

He holds out the pouch by its drawstrings.

"Thought you'd want it back."

Elsa frowns, confusion written in her expression and _don't-remind-me_ in her eyes as she takes the pouch from him, and opens it to slip two fingers inside.

"Oh my God," she whispers, puzzlement vanishing behind gasping shock. "After all this time… what I did… you still kept it?"

"Yep." Jack smiles. "Call me a sentimental fool, but you're not the only one with a compulsion to obey."

Out from the bag, between two dainty fingers that curl over to rest it on the palm of the same hand, is her silver wedding band. She gazes upon it with distant eyes of reunion, smiling, like it's the most precious thing in the world. "I thought I'd lost it forever."

"Now, you know better." He nods toward the ring. "You're still my wife, you know. No matter what's happened, or with who. See… the ' _til death do us part_ line? Doesn't really apply now, does it?"

"No, no it doesn't." She manoeuvres the ring onto her fingers, and slips it down her left ring finger. Gazing upon it, she murmurs, "Now I feel whole again. Thank you..."

"No problem. Looks good on your-"

He is cut off by the grasping of her left hand at the back of his head to yank him hard against her lips, kissing him with a fierce possessiveness that banishes all thought.

The second they break apart, she whispers, "I feel whole, but I'm not feeling _full._ Get back here-" she leans in to ghost a whisper across his ear, sending shivers down his spine, "-I'm not done with you yet."

There's a split second fear for his life before it is ruthlessly overridden by the uncontrollable urge to - as she so eloquently put - fuck her senseless, so he clambers over the backrest. Before he has a chance to do anything, Elsa gets up and shoves him down on the sofa where she was previously kneeling, and bends down to yank a lever fixed to the side to lift up Jack's legs with the leg-rest.

"What are you— _whup!"_

The room suddenly goes topsy turvy - turns out the backrest can become horizontal, too. Jack makes a mental note to actually _use_ the stuff he buys, in future.

Elsa lifts her leg over to straddle him facing his feet - after a quick meeting with her mouth to moisten his length - and with the care of handling a precious package but the impatience of wanting to get to the good stuff, she holds his length in place whilst lowering herself down upon him.

"Oh… _fuck."_

She tightens around him almost instantly, and Jack's head digs into the backrest with a blissful groan. His thighs feel the grip of her hands as she begins to ride him back and forth, the room filled once again with her pleasured moans.

His eyes find her spine as it arches and dips with each grind, and seeking tactile beauty, he reaches up to her shoulders, and glides his hungry hands down her shoulder blades. Her muscles and bones shift under his touch on the way down, only adding to his visual pleasure, until his hands reach her ass where they squeeze, claw and knead like it's his life's work.

She giggles in between throaty moans, casting him a sultry look over her shoulder. "You really like my ass, don't you?"

"Ask a stupid question…" he groans.

She laughs out loud before another mewl cuts its way through her mirth. "Well," she says breathlessly, "it's all yours, so are you going to play with it, or what?"

To add to that, she rolls her hips in a circle around his length, gyrating her glorious derriere to tempt him further. Like he needed the hint. He grasps and gropes at it with greater desire, and then, as though overcome by the animalistic desire to reprimand her blatant teasing, spanks her right cheek.

Elsa emits a high pitched squeal as the sound of skin meeting skin bounces off the walls, and her head whips around to fix him with a scandalous yet lustful look, her mouth wide open.

"Did you just _spank_ me?" she gasps.

"Um… yeah?" If his cheeks weren't already overheating with sexual exertion, they'd be bright red with embarrassment now. "Should I not have done?"

"Honey, I've been giving you enough hints to do that since I danced for you. So yes, you should have done-"

Her right hand grasps and pulls her right cheek and then lets go, causing it to temptingly ripple.

"-and you should do it again."

God, this woman is going to be the end of him. Yet, any inhibitions are swiftly cast aside when she gyrates her ass as another subtle hint, and the sound of skin on skin echoes through the air as his left hand meets her left cheek.

Again.

Again.

It's after the fifth or sixth alternating spank and ecstatic moan that he clues into precisely _why_ she enjoys it so much - every time he spanks her perfect rear, every muscle in her abdomen contracts in response… including the one constricting his length. Slight pain, but far more pleasure.

She rides him harder and harder each time like an animal.

"Fuck…" she whines, "It feels like I'm starting to come again…"

"That's a… _fucking hell…_ good thing, right?"

"No," she says in a breathless moan, "not yet. Let me… _ah, so good…_ change position…because..."

Immediately does she push herself onto her right knee, emitting a loud cry of pleasure as he slips out from inside her. With shaking legs she turns around to face him, her chest flushed red with heat, and a hand grips his length as she lowers herself down upon him, her mouth dropping open and eyes closing in ecstasy.

"...because there are parts of my body you've neglected, that are getting jealous… and when I come…" she leans in to brush her lips over his, "I want to be deep in your eyes when I do…"

Jack has the space of a second to smile before Elsa captures his lips in a fierce, possessive kiss, moaning into his throat as her hips thrust back and forth once again, sending the lightning storm of golden electricity in his groin into a frenzied level. His hands roughly ascend her thighs, revelling in the smoothness of her skin and the way her hips twitch in response when his thumbs stroke at her hip bones. He glides along her abdomen, feeling her arch her body into his touch - he makes another mental note in a brief period of cognitive lucidity to ask her for her training regime, because _damn, that toned stomach -_ all the way up to her breasts.

In accord, she breaks the ferocious kiss and leans forward slightly to allow him easier access. With her chest hovering over his face, his hands cup at her breasts, squeezing and caressing whilst he cranes his head up to enclose his mouth around her right nipple much to her moaning delight, the taste of her pebbled skin like heaven as he licks and flicks her hard nipple with his tongue.

"Fuck…" she moans. "Right there… I love it when you suck there…"

She's not the only one.

He moves his attention to the other nipple, her moans like carnal music to his ears, but it isn't long before a certain chain reaction starts in his groin - so with his right hand on her left breast and left hand on her right ass cheek, he draws his legs up and slams upwards inside her, thrusting at inhuman speeds as deep as he can go, causing one hell of a protracted moan well on its way to a squeal.

"Elsa-"

"...yes?" she mewls, before crying out, " _Oh God, don't stop fucking me!"_

"I'm about to-"

"Yes!" she cries. "Me too! Inside me— _fuck—_ fill me!"

It's enough to send him over the edge. Ensuring he drowns in her eyes, he roars her name to the heavens, and his hot seed explodes forth into her searing core in a dazzling array of stars across his vision. The very act pushes Elsa into her own orgasm; screaming his name loud enough to deafen, her body jerks and shudders, hips thrusting in an uncontrollable rhythm, her walls clamping down on his length like a vice.

Spent by what Jack can remember as the most intense orgasm of her life, Elsa flops her head down upon his chest, her sweat-laced skin mingling with his in a mess of tangled limbs and exhausted muscles.

Elsa shifts her weight onto her right leg as a silent request for Jack to scootch to the side, and nestles against his body as, with effort rivalling Hercules, he obliges. Her flyaway, errant strands of hair tickle at his skin as she rests her head on his left breast, her left arm draped across his chest while her right leg hooks over his. Not a word is spoken for a long while, so desperate is the need for oxygen as their chests rise and fall in deep unison, holding her naked body against him.

"That was… _wow…"_ is all Jack can manage as the world slowly comes back to him.

Her head gently nods against his chest. "Wow indeed… I don't think I've ever came so hard… I don't think I can even _move…"_

Even through the post-coital haze, Jack's mind manages to think, " _hah, fuck you, asshole-burns."_

"Glad I was able to please you," he murmurs, turning his head to plant a kiss on her scalp.

She scoffs. "Understatement of the century. If this is how it's going to be when we work together… I'll be amazed if we get anything done."

Her head shifts on his chest, and all of a sudden, he's drowning in her beautiful eyes once again. "But I'm looking forward to it."

He smiles down at her, and cranes his head down as she stretches up, their lips meeting in a quick but loving kiss. "I love you…"

She pecks him through a wide smile. "I love you too."

They nestle down together, Jack holding her close as though letting go would lose her forever, as he gazes out of his apartment window into the night skyline of the city. The lights of countless towers and skyscrapers blink back at him like man-made starlight, oddly bringing home how lucky he is for the Fates to conspire and bring his wife back to him. Cuddled in his arms is the love of his life - and soon his battle-partner.

"Thai."

Frowning, he looks down just as she peeks up. "Huh?"

"You asked me what takeout I wanted - Thai."

Jack snorts in amazement. "That was eight years ago - you _still_ remember?"

She looks away, and her left fingertip traces a circle around his nipple. "That day was memorable for all the wrong reasons - I'd like one of them to be right."

"Well," Jack rubs an affectionate stroke over her shoulder, "that place you like, the one that's open all hours? It's still around - they just had to move a couple of blocks away."

"How long does it take them to deliver?"

Jack shrugs. "Thirty, forty-five minutes. Why?"

She shifts position so her upper body is supported by her arms on his chest, and as she gazes down at him, there's an impish twinkle and a lustful look not unlike the one she gave him in the moments before they rode each other senseless.

"How about we order some for an hour's time?"

Jack narrows his eyes. "Why are you being so awfully specific?"

"Because," she smirks, nibbling the tip of her thumb, "I think I have one last orgasm in me, and one place no-one's ever been. I'd like you to be the first."

"One last-"

Elsa's eyebrows rise into her hair as her smirk widens, and her meaning comes crashing down on him like one dirty, dirty hammer.

" _OH!_ "

Fuck the missions. Jack doesn't know if he's going to survive _her._


End file.
